Author Archives: Dawn Bingaman

NARA Records Digitized by Partners

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United States National Archives Digitization Partners

A fantastic link was shared yesterday by instructor Claire Bettag, CG in her “NARA at Your Fingertips” talk to our group at the National Institute on Genealogical Research (NIGR), currently underway at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

The link she shared was to National Archives records digitized and made available in whole or in part on the websites of its digitization partners, Ancestry.com and Fold3.com. If researching from home, you will likely need a subscription to pull up the record, but the index should be available at no charge.

NARA Records Digitized by Digitization Partners

This long list of digitized publications can easily be sorted by clicking on any of the column headings. Or, search the page for a specific keyword using CTRL+ F on your keyboard. Once you’ve found a publication of interest, click on the title to be taken to the search page at the partner website. In this example, I have searched for M313, the War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, and clicked that link to be taken to the search page on Ancestry.com.

War of 1812 Pension Application Files at AncestryWar of 1812 Pension Application Files Index (1812-1815) at Ancestry.

Claire Bettag is one of my favorite speakers on topics relative to records held at the National Archives. I always come away with a valuable tidbit from one of her lectures.

[Post updated 15 Jan 2018]

Fold3: New “Save to Ancestry” Button

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It’s no secret. I love the subscription site Fold3.com, formerly Footnote.com, and have gratefully paid to be a subscriber to it since it launched in 2007. When Ancestry.com acquired the parent company of Fold3.com nearly two years ago, those of us who believe competition is good for the industry collectively held our breath to see what changes may come down the pipeline. Today, I can report one very positive outcome of that merger: the new “Save to Ancestry” button that now appears on Fold3.com.

Save to Ancestry button on Fold3

I missed whatever announcement that may have been made about this new feature. However, when I pulled up a record in the viewer yesterday, the new green button containing the Ancestry.com logo was at the top right of the viewer.

John King Final Payment, RG 217 on Fold3.com

Clicking this button allows a researcher to save the record image from Fold3.com to a tree on Ancestry. Simply select your pre-existing tree on Ancestry.com, and then select the person within the tree that you want to save the image to.

Save to Ancestry

Once you see the message that you have successfully saved the image to the person’s “profile” on the Ancestry tree, you may then click in to view the image of the record.

Successful save from Fold3 to Ancestry tree

The “Index to Selected Final Payment Vouchers, 1818-1864” (RG 217) is discussed in a 2008 article in Prologue by Claire Prechtel-Kluskens called “Follow the Money: Tracking Revolutionary War Army Pension Payments“. John King (1765-1855) is one of my Revolutionary War ancestors, and it is his index card that you see in the above screenshots.

Headstone Record for Civil War Soldier Perrine Carson

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Civil War soldier Perrine Carson (1821-1866) was the brother of my ancestor, Caroline Carson (ca. 1829/30-1915). He was injured in service when building a bridge, and died within a year of his honorable discharge from the Army. His widow, Sarah Ann Carson, died in 1867, leaving five children under the age of 16.

Headstone card for Perrine Carson from National Archives RG 92, Office of the Quartermaster General.

Name: Carson, Perrine
Rank: Pvt.
Service: Co. I, 38th Regt., N.J. Inf[antry]
Cemetery: Presbyterian
Cemetery Location: Hamilton Square, Mercer Co., N.J.
Grave: [blank]
Date of Death: May 21 – 1866
Headstone Supplied by: Sheldon & Sons, West Rutland, Vermont
Contract Date: Aug. 21, 18881

Leigh Miller posted an image of his headstone on my behalf at Find A Grave.2 The marker is of the typical shield design, with only his name and regiment inscribed. A similar headstone for Sarah Ann Carson is adjacent.3 Other Carson family members are interred in the Presbyterian Churchyard at Hamilton Square, New Jersey as well.4

Sources:

1 “Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1879-1903”, card for Perrine Carson (1888?); digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 01 Jun 2013), citing NARA microfilm publication M1845, roll 4.

2 Find A Grave, online database (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 01 Jun 2013), Perrine Carson, memorial no. 37797943, First Presbyterian Churchyard (Hamilton Square, Mercer County, New Jersey).

3 Find A Grave, online database (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 01 Jun 2013), Sarah Ann Carson, memorial no. 37797975, First Presbyterian Churchyard (Hamilton Square, Mercer County, New Jersey).

4 Nine persons bearing the Carson surname have been included in the Find A Grave database for this cemetery to date, including Caroline Carson and her husband, Charles Carson. See First Presbyterian Churchyard, Hamilton Square, Mercer County, New Jersey, Carson family markers; memorials, Find A Grave, online database (http:www.findagrave.com : accessed 01 Jun 2013).

Headstone Record for Civil War Soldier David Bingaman

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NARA Record Group 92: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General

 

David M. Bingaman (1842-1896), served in the Civil War in Companies C, D, and E of the 20th Indiana Infantry. Family lore has it that he was wounded in action at the Battles of Malvern Hill (1 Jul 1862) and Gettysburg (2 Jul 1863). He survived these wounds, but older brother, John M. Bingaman, whom David followed into the Army, perished in combat at Malvern Hill, Virginia. David went on to marry Amanda A. McKibben in 1871. They lived in Illinois, the Oklahoma Territory and Kansas. The couple had no children.

As a deceased Union Civil War veteran, his grave in Pomona, Kansas was marked with a headstone supplied at government expense in 1902, under legislation passed in 1879 (20 Stat. 281). Besides the allowance for grave markers for Union veterans in private, village and city cemeteries, the law stipulated

The Secretary of War shall cause to be preserved in the records of his Department the names and places of burial of all soldiers for whom such headstones shall have been erected by authority of this or any former acts.1

Today, headstone records for interments in private cemeteries for the period between 1879 and roughly 1903 are part of Record Group (RG) 92 Office of the Quartermaster General. Per the catalog entry there are 166,000 cards that have been microfilmed on 22 rolls. The microfilm may be accessed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. or at regional branches of the National Archives. Nine 3” x 4” inch cards were microfilmed per frame. This microfilm collection has also been digitized, and is available at Ancestry.com as Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1879-1903.


Headstone card for David M. BingamanHeadstone card for 2 Lt. David M. Bingaman of the 20th Indiana

Information from the card is as follows:

Name: Bingaman, David M.
Rank: 2nd Lt.
Service: Co. D, 20th Regt., Ind[iana] Inf[antry]
Cemetery: Pomona
Cemetery Location: Pomona, Franklin Co., Kans.
Grave: [blank]
Date of Death: Nov 30 – 1896
Headstone Supplied by: Lee Marble Works
Contract Date: March 29, 19022

I have not yet been able to ascertain whether applications for headstones made between 1879-1903 might exist, although I have seen earlier examples online at NARA, and catalog entries for the period following. This will be added to my to-do list when I attend the National Institute on Genealogical Research (NIGR) in Washington, DC in July 2013.

Read more about this topic:

Kluskens, Claire Prechtel. “Headstone Records for US Military Veterans, Part II: Records for Headstones Requested from 1879 to 1925.” NGS Magazine 39:2 (April-June 2013), 32-35. A copy of this article may be downloaded by NGS members at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

Mollan, Mark C. “Honoring Our War Dead: The Evolution of the Government Policy on Headstones for Fallen Soldiers and Sailors.” Prologue 35:1 (Spring 2003), 56-65. Online here.

Sources:

1 “An act authorizing the Secretary of War to erect headstones over the graves of Union soldiers who have been interred in private, village, or city cemeteries,” 20 Stat. 281 (3 Feb 1879).

2 “Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1879-1903”, card for David M. Bingaman (1902); digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 May 2013), citing NARA microfilm publication M1845, roll 2.